Archive - 2006 - Article

As many Ministers and senior officials arrived today in Geneva for several days of WTO meetings, speculation was still rife on how the 'Ministerial Green Room' would be run, what issues would the Director General Pascal Lamy really want to focus on (and what issues may thus be left out), and what the Ministers and officials who are not invited to the Green Room would be doing.

The Chair of the WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) Pascal Lamy, at an informal Heads of Delegation meeting Wednesday, outlined to WTO members the process, and substantive issues that are to be tackled at a 'mini-Ministerial' that begins on Friday (30 June).

Press statement: Farmer leaders representing the international peasant movement La Via Campesina are in Geneva to express their rejection of the WTO Doha Round. The agreement currently negotiated in

Threats, deception and manipulation are among the negotiating tactics used by rich countries in the current round of trade talks reveals a new report, The Doha Deception Round: How the US and EU cheated developing countries at the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial, launched today by ActionAid.

A group of over 100 civil society organizations has denounced the mini-Ministerial meeting to be held in Geneva in the next days as not legitimate as it does not allow for the effective participation of all Ministers.

This week's ministerial meetings in Geneva aimed at settling on negotiating modalities for agriculture and nonagricultural market access are 'make-or-break' for the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda trade round, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said yesterday

Key members of the World Trade Organization yesterday sharply differed over what constitutes the level of political 'ambition' in the Doha Development Agenda modalities for agriculture and market-opening for industrials challenging whether 'real cuts' and 'new market access' are part of the overall mandate

Trade chiefs of the Group-of-Six nations will meet Thursday in a 'last-ditch' effort to resolve all the remaining issues in the trade-distorting domestic support and market access pillars of Doha Development Agenda farm trade negotiations

World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy yesterday circulated a revised list of issues designed for discussion by the 30-plus trade ministers that arrive here this week in an attempt to conclude negotiating modalities for the Doha Development Agenda trade in agriculture and nonagricultural market access.

Affiliates of the International Metalworkers' Federation in Africa have just released a statement on the current proposals of the WTO arguing that they will have a negative impact on developing countries and undermine development, in particular in Africa and, in turn, will increase the pressure on workers in the more industrialised nations.